Issue 06 · 9 October 2026

This week’s takeaways

• Support schemes are adding conditions. France will limit Chinese magnets in its onshore wind tender, Flanders will withhold green certificates in negative-price hours, and Italy set out how bidders in its new renewables auctions qualify and post guarantees.
• More system services are opening to batteries. Hungary joined Europe’s shared balancing platforms, Great Britain’s National Energy System Operator (NESO) set rules for a reactive power market that pays at 0 MW, and Litgrid, Lithuania’s grid operator, is auctioning 154 MW of fast frequency response.
• Unused grid capacity is starting to cost money. Czechia will charge high-voltage customers for reserved capacity from January, and Finland’s Energy Authority confirmed terms that let grid companies take capacity back from projects that miss milestones. That is this week’s deep dive.

How to read this

↑ Tailwind   ↓ Headwind   • Neutral

Tailwind helps the businesses affected. Headwind adds cost, delay or risk. Neutral means no clear overall benefit or drawback, though the change may still matter.

Potential means the effect depends on a proposal being adopted or another condition being met. Consultations are proposals open for feedback. They are listed with their closing dates in the diary at the end.

Our six themes
Market Design · Taxes, Subsidies and Public Programmes · Siting, Permitting and Land Use · Grid · Environmental Markets · Supply Chains

The regulatory picture

Updates in this edition, by market and likely effect. Bar length shows how many updates we cover, not how big their impact is. Consultations in the diary are included, and cross-border measures appear in each affected market. Select a market to jump to its section.

↑ Tailwind • Neutral ↓ Headwind

This week’s deep dive

🇪🇺 Across markets · Grid

Grid operators start charging for capacity that sits unused

On 7 October, Czechia’s Energy Regulatory Office (ERÚ) and the Czech Energy Association set out two changes to begin charging for reserving grid capacity. The same day, Finland’s Energy Authority announced connection terms that let grid companies take back reserved grid capacity.

A connection contract reserves part of the network for one customer. The operator must keep that part free whether or not the customer uses it, so a reservation that is never used still takes up space on the grid.

In Czechia, customers connected at high and very high voltage will pay for their reserved capacity from 1 January 2027. Previously, they paid nothing for unused capacity, and the cost fell on other customers. Distributors put the gap between these customers’ peak use and their reservations at more than 3 GW, and estimate that up to 15% of the unused capacity could be released straight away. Separately, distributors hold tens of thousands of contracts for future connections that reserve more than 10 GW. Every holder must sign an amendment by early November 2026, or the contract and its reservation lapse. Advance payments for a connection have also become non-refundable deposits, which will be lost if the project is never connected.

In Finland, new standard terms for distribution companies let a grid company shrink a connection under-used for 12 months, and end the contract without refunding the connection fee when agreed construction or commissioning conditions are not met. Companies must offer the terms by 31 January 2027.

These moves will benefit developers with real projects: capacity held by projects that will never be built goes back to the queue, opening up room for other applicants. Batteries are exposed in Finland, where a consultation respondent warned (PDF) that letting grid companies shrink a connection after 12 months of lower-than-agreed use creates an uncontrolled risk for new storage. Czech distributors say manufacturers and electricity producers have asked most about the new tariffs.

What to watch: how many Czech reservations lapse in November, how much capacity is released before January, and the further decrees ERÚ says will move connection costs onto the customers who cause them.

All-island capacity auctions will require planning consent and a grid offer

5 October ·  Market Design / Siting, Permitting and Land Use  Decision · • Neutral

The Single Electricity Market Committee, which regulates the shared power market of Ireland and Northern Ireland, approved a Capacity Market Code change to add fixed entry criteria. This will require new units bidding into the capacity auctions to show planning permission, or evidence that none is needed, and a grid connection offer or agreement. Demand-side units on exempt industrial land may show their exemption instead. The rule will apply from 1 July 2027. Developers with consented, connected projects will face fewer speculative rivals, while early-stage projects will need to wait for a later auction.

Flanders ends green certificates in every negative-price quarter-hour

7 October ·  Taxes, Subsidies and Public Programmes / Environmental Markets  Order · ↓ Headwind

The Flemish Government amended its energy order so that no green certificates are granted for output in any quarter-hour with a negative electricity price, from 1 January 2027. Until now certificates were withheld only during runs of at least six consecutive negative hours. The rule covers all installations, whatever their start date, and power used on site as well as power exported; plants below 400 kW are exempt (200 kW for plants commissioned from 2026). Green certificates are Flanders’ per-MWh support for solar and wind, so certificate-backed solar loses support in the midday hours when prices turn negative most often.

Croatia publishes its market law, with flexible grid connections

7 October ·  Grid / Market Design  Law · ↑ Tailwind

As of 15 October, the amended Electricity Market Act will require the Croatian Energy Regulatory Agency to write rules for flexible connection agreements. Where the grid is full, a project can connect on limited capacity, with the expected date it becomes firm set in its contract, but without compensation when told to cut output. Aggregators may enter every market, including the balancing market. Holders of energy approvals that stalled because the connection charge was never set see their deadlines start only once it is set.

Czech grid customers will pay for the capacity they reserve

7 October ·  Grid  Announcement · • Neutral

ERÚ confirmed that high-voltage customers will pay for reserved capacity from 1 January 2027, and that unbuilt reservations will lapse unless their holders sign an amendment by early November. For more, see this week’s deep dive.

Finnish grid companies can take back unused connection capacity

7 October ·  Grid  Decision · • Neutral

The Energy Authority confirmed new standard connection terms for 73 distribution companies that let a grid company shrink under-used connections and end contracts whose agreed construction or commissioning conditions are not met. For more, see this week’s deep dive.

France adds a Chinese-magnet limit to its onshore wind tender

7 October ·  Supply Chains / Taxes, Subsidies and Public Programmes  Procedure · ↓ Headwind

The Energy Regulatory Commission (CRE) published the rules (PDF) for the 13th round of the onshore wind tender. The round will award support contracts for 1,000 MW; projects will be able to bid from 7 to 17 December. Turbines whose generators use permanent magnets may now source no more than 85% of them from China. A repowered wind farm must also give up its existing support contract to win a new one.

Greek transmission users can reclaim grid-extension costs

5 October ·  Grid  Procedure · ↑ Tailwind

The Independent Power Transmission Operator (IPTO) opened the procedure through which users who paid for works extending the transmission grid to their site can recover 50% of the cost, a right granted by a 2022 law that had no working process until now. For a solar, wind, or storage plant connecting at 150 kV or 400 kV, getting half the extension cost back improves returns. IPTO repays in three instalments, the last about 20 months after trial operation ends.

Hungary joins the EU balancing platforms

2 October ·  Market Design  Announcement · ↑ Tailwind

The Hungarian Independent Transmission Operator Company connected the country to Europe’s shared balancing-market platforms on 1 October. These are the Platform for the International Coordination of Automated Frequency Restoration and Stable System Operation, for automatic reserves, and the Manually Activated Reserves Initiative, for manual ones. Hungarian batteries and flexible plants now sell balancing energy against bids from other countries, which widens their market but will likely cause price convergence between national markets.

Ireland’s new planning law starts on 13 October

2 October ·  Siting, Permitting and Land Use  Guidance · • Neutral

The Planning Commission published guidance on what happens to projects already in the planning system when the Planning and Development Act 2024 replaces the old rules on planning permission. For projects that applied before 13 October, the Commission will decide any appeal against it under the old rules, even an appeal it receives after that date. Only applications made from 13 October will go through the new process.

Italy publishes the bidding rules for its new renewables auctions

2 October ·  Taxes, Subsidies and Public Programmes  Decree · ↑ Tailwind

The Ministry of the Environment and Energy Security approved the bidding rules (PDF) for the new auctions of its renewable energy sources scheme, known as FER X, which offer price support to solar, wind, and hydro plants above 1 MW. The first auction, in December, seeks 1.5 GW of wind and 350 MW of solar, rising to 2 GW and 3.5 GW if bids come in cheap, plus separate rounds for projects meeting the EU’s Net-Zero Industry Act supply-chain criteria. To enter, a developer must post a guarantee of 5% of a standard build cost. A winner then has 30 days to replace it with a second guarantee worth 10%, which it gets back once the plant is running and loses if it misses its commissioning deadline. When ranking solar bids, the state energy services company (GSE), which runs the auctions, adds a surcharge in zones that have already met their 2030 renewables targets, up to €28.5/MWh in Sardinia and Sicily, though winners still receive their own bid price. Northern solar projects gain a ranking edge. Ties favour, in order, solar repowering on farmland, designated renewable zones, and power purchase agreements of at least 10 years.

Switzerland adopts wholesale-market abuse rules from 2027

2 October ·  Market Design  Regulation · • Neutral

The Federal Council approved the ordinance on oversight and transparency in wholesale energy markets, which fills in a 2025 law to establish market-abuse and reporting rules like the EU’s. It will take effect on 1 January 2027. Wind, solar, and battery operators that trade electricity in Switzerland, or sell through traders, will face insider-information and reporting duties.

Ofgem gives NESO another month for 62 connection offers

2 October ·  Grid  Decision · ↓ Headwind

The Office of Gas and Electricity Markets (Ofgem) agreed to extend NESO’s deadline for about 62 first-phase connection offers under the Gate 2 queue reform, from 30 September to 31 October. National Grid Electricity Transmission was late with its construction offers, and about 25 other offers need more time, mainly at customers’ request. All other dates stand, including 31 January 2027 for second-phase offers. Affected projects will wait a month longer for the terms their financing depends on.

NESO sets the entry rules for its reactive power market

6 October ·  Market Design / Grid  Procedure · ↑ Tailwind

NESO published the qualification rules for its Mid-term Reactive Power Market, which will buy voltage support through tenders up to a year ahead or within the year. Voltage support used to come from large power stations, which are closing. Plants must connect directly to the transmission network and supply reactive power even at 0 MW, so a battery can earn it while idle and still trade energy. Sites in active network management schemes that restrict delivery are excluded. Qualification stays open until the first tender.

Ofgem rejects long self-build code changes and proposes a wider route

7 October ·  Grid  Decision · • Neutral

Ofgem rejected two code changes that would have let transmission customers build connection assets longer than 2 km themselves, because they depended on a companion change withdrawn in June. The same day it proposed letting generation, storage, and demand customers self-build all sole-use assets to the grid, through licence and code changes, citing stakeholder estimates of about 20% lower cost and one to two years saved where no reinforcement is needed. Comments close on 13 November.

Closing by 16 October